What are the long-term effects of alcohol use on a developing brain?

Studies suggest that the adolescent brain goes through a series of structural and functional changes that may make it more susceptible to long-term impairments due to alcohol use. These dynamic changes affect the planning, decision-making, impulse control, voluntary movement, and speech-production processes. (Task Force of the National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. A Call to Action: Changing the Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges (Washington, D.C.: National Institutes of Health, 2002.) http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov)

Specifically, the American Medical Association reports that "…frontal lobe development and the refinement of pathways and connections continue until age 16, and a high rate of energy is used as the brain matures until age 20." (American Medical Association (AMA). (2004). Harmful consequences of alcohol use on the brains of children, adolescents, and college students. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/9416.html)

"The hippocampus handles many types of memory and learning and suffers from the worst alcohol-related brain damage in teens. Those who had been drinking more and for longer had significantly smaller hippocampi (10 percent)." (American Medical Association (AMA). (2004). Harmful consequences of alcohol use on the brains of children, adolescents, and college students. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/9416.html)